Mel Gibson's Passion and Philosophy

by Irwin, William, Gracia, Jorge J. E.

  In the first few hundred years after Jesus’s death, the Jewish God had become so familiar to the Jewish mystic that He is sometimes even stripped of his awe-inspiring powers. One classic story in the Talmud recounts an argument between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua regarding Jewish law. Eliezer summons God who weighs in on the side of Eliezer. But even God’s own voice is not good enough for Joshua. “Torah is no longer in Heaven,” Joshua boldly proclaims. “God has given it to men.” God can only smile after having been on the losing side of the argument. In these Talmudic stories we don’t get the same soul-wrenching transformation that we saw with Moses and Daniel, and later with Jesus and Paul, but the intimacy between man and God that is so important in mysticism is also a hallmark of the rabbinic literature in later centuries.

  Jewish mysticism sees its most potent revival in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries with the publication of the Book of Zohar in Spain, and other works that come to be known simply as the Kabbalah. These mystical works talk of learning God’s inner meaning through a secret combination and rearrangement of Hebrew words in the Torah, of quiet prayers that bring one closer to God’s mysterious chariot, and of divine sparks that cry within the human body, begging to be released and restored in God. And just like the dynamic and dangerous times of first-century Israel, the mystical ideal of finding God through non-rational channels was seen as a threat to the authorities. Many Jewish mystics were killed by the Spanish Inquisition, as they were by the Roman Empire over one thousand years earlier.

  In more recent times, the Hassidic movement of Eastern Europe introduced a more joyous piety to Jewish mysticism. As the movement flourished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Hassidic mystics argued that the Kabbalah’s divine sparks could lead to a “cleaving” to God that brings enduring joy to those blessed enough to experience it. Still, all is not light and easy. There’s an old Hassidic story of Rabbi Firkes who yearns to learn the mystical secrets of God. When he is publicly insulted for his ambition, he cries a flood of tears. Only in the deep recesses of his anguish does the rabbi experience God, and within the tears of his soul, he finds inner peace and lasting hope.

  Quid est Veritas?

  Mysticism, and its emphasis on personal suffering, always seems to flower in turbulent times. Since 9/11, more Americans see life as fragile, much like the Jews saw their own lives in the chaotic days of Jesus. In such times, many people look to mystics, more so than to philosophers, for truth. Today, the Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles opens its doors to celebrities such as Madonna, Demi Moore, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears. In such a climate of spiritual upheaval, it’s hardly surprising that Mel Gibson’s mystical interpretation in The Passion has received such widespread attention. History teaches us that when people are bombarded with stories of intolerance and prospects of death, they turn to more direct paths of becoming united with God.

  Is this turn toward mysticism a good thing? Should we instead encourage the steady hand of philosophy over the non-rational, individualistic pursuit of a higher being? Which truth is more valuable? In Gibson’s Passion, this question is raised in an exchange between Pontius Pilate and his wife. The scene takes place after Pilate has already interrogated Jesus in private. During the questioning of the prisoner, Pilate asks Jesus if he is a king. Jesus answers cryptically: “Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” Later, Pilate, still confused, goes on to raise the age-old philosophical question: “Quid est veritas?” What is truth? There’s no reason to suspect Pilate is a truth-seeking philosopher, but he does have a bit of the pragmatist in him. Pilate has orders to follow and a family to consider. He considers Jesus’s words, but they appear illogical.

  Though Pilate’s wife is hardly mentioned in the New Testament, Gibson has her play the role of the mystic in The Passion. “What is truth?” Pilate repeats to his wife in the movie. Knowing that her husband is too rational to grasp higher truths, she responds mystically, “If you will not hear the truth, no one can tell you.”

  What, then, is the truth, and how can we find it? In The Passion, Gibson seems to side with Pilate’s wife. By adding the exchange (not found in the New Testament), Gibson makes a special effort to favor the mystical path of attaining truth. Let’s not crucify him for that. In some of the other chapters of this volume, we saw just how much Gibson is influenced by Christian mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774–1824). But whether he chooses to acknowledge it or not, Gibson also stands within thousands of years of Jewish mystical tradition when he champions the painful, irrational journey to find God. It’s a tradition that still fascinates people of all religions, from the hills of Hollywood to the silent shores of the Galilee.*

  SOURCES

  Bruce Chilton. 2000. Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography. New York: Doubleday.

  William James. 1997. The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Simon and Schuster.

  Gershom Scholem. 1961. Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. New York: Schocken.

  Adin Steinsaltz. 1976. The Essential Talmud. Translated by Chaya Galai. New York: Basic Books.

  Geza Vermes. 1974. Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels. New York: Macmillan.

  QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

  1. Which aspects of Judaism does Jesus follow?

  2. Why were purification rites and baptisms so important to the ancient Jews?

  3. During the time of Jesus, Jews were sharply divided on the future of their faith. Are Muslims going through similar rifts today?

  4. Is Mel Gibson a mystic?

  5. How does mysticism differ from philosophy?

  * Thanks to Aryn Martin and Gail Sheena for their help with New Testament interpretations.

  III

  What Is the Truth?

  11

  Pilate’s Question: What Is Truth?

  WILLIAM IRWIN

  If The Passion of the Christ asks one clearly philosophical question it is: Quid est veritas? What is truth? Indeed philosophers have “a passion for truth.” Certainly Socrates (470–399 B.C.) did. His dialectical method involved asking questions and exposing false answers by providing counterexamples, prompting further questions and answers. So in this chapter I’ll consider The Passion in light of the question and the question in light of The Passion.

  A word of warning though, this chapter does not attempt to deliver a “final answer” to the question “What is truth?” Rather, like a nervous contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, the chapter tells you everything I know about the topic off the top of my head. The theories described all have more sophisticated versions. My apologies to their advocates. This is just a starter’s kit. Thinking things through with me perhaps you’ll find the answer yourself, though. If you do, give me a hint.

  “Truth Is Just Another Fiction”: Relativism

  Gibson’s genial Pilate seems intent on finding a way to get Jesus off the hook, or rather spare him from the cross. But the guy just won’t help himself. In the midst of interrogation Gibson’s Jesus, faithful to Scripture (John 18:37), informs Pilate that “[e]veryone on the side of truth listens to me.” A vexed Pilate remarks later, “What is truth?” He might as well say “What the hell is this guy talking about?”

  Pilate does not think of truth as something real and ideal. Pilate is a relativist. As they say in West Virginia, “it’s all relative.” Pilate knows no absolute standard of truth. It’s true for him that executing Jesus is ultimately what is best, even if it’s not true for his wife Claudia.

  Gibson’s Pilate is a sympathetic character. Though he is a bad guy, the audience can see where he’s coming from. Most young people have learned the valuable lesson of tolerance that not everyone acts and believes as they do. But too many have learned it too well, drawing from it the unwarranted conclusion that everyone is right in the way they think, act, and believe. It’s true for some Muslim societies that female circumcision makes women better wives, but it isn’t true for American society. Truth is relative. It depends on the society, sometimes it even depend
s on the person.

  Unfortunately this textbook example of bad reasoning is reinforced and justified by some intellectuals and academics who call themselves postmodernists. As Jean Baudrillard, a leading postmodernist, explains:

  [N]obody really believes in the real . . . [O]ur belief in reality and evidence is . . . obscene. Truth is what should be laughed at. One may dream of a culture where everyone bursts into laughter when someone says: this is true, this is real . . .

  Although it sounds a lot like the relativism that dates to Pilate and back much further still, Postmodernism claims to be something new, you know, like the emperor’s clothes. The postmodern view of truth has its roots in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) who asks, “Supposing truth is a woman—what then?” (1966, p. 2). The idea is that there is no essential truth, certainly none that we can hope to apprehend anyway, just ways of seeing things. “There is only a perspective seeing, only a perspective knowing,” Nietzsche claims (1969, p. 119). What then are we to do? Well, as Billy Joel sang, “The most she will do / is throw shadows at you / But she’s always a woman to me.” The answer is to get as good a perspective on the woman as you can and reconcile yourself to it. Men are foolish and doomed to be hurt if they think there is anything more to it than that.

  Misogyny aside, there is just no reason to accept the pessimistic conclusion of Nietzsche and the “truthless people,” postmodernists. Surely there must be criteria by which we can decide what is true.

  “Truth Is Out There”: Correspondence

  The criterion for deciding whether a proposition is true or false is an essential concern of epistemology, the branch of philosophy that deals with knowledge. From the time of Plato (around 428–347 B.C.), without challenge until the middle of the twentieth century, knowledge was defined as true, justified belief. Clearly, to properly make use of this definition of knowledge one must have a way of telling whether or not a proposition is true.

  The oldest and most commonsense criterion of truth is given by the Correspondence Theory of Truth, which in its simplest form states: a proposition is true if and only if it corresponds to the way things actually are. For example, we know that “Erwin’s cat is alive” is true if and only if Erwin’s cat is alive. If the cat is dead, the proposition is false. The X-Files made famous the claim, “The truth is out there.” If we change this mantra to “the proof is out there,” we have a version of the Correspondence Theory. The proposition is true, because the facts “out there” match what it claims.

  “Jesus is God incarnate” is a proposition Christians believe to be true. But what proof, what evidence, corresponds to this proposition, showing it to be true? Like the Jesus of the Gospels, Gibson’s Jesus does not give us the proverbial smoking gun, at least not prior to the resurrection. Prior to his resurrection Jesus gave clues as to his divine identity, but he did not provide any proof that would be accepted by all independently of faith. Gibson’s Caiaphas and bad thief employ the Correspondence Theory when they goad Jesus to come down off the cross if he is really who he says he is. Even post-resurrection the Jesus of Scripture does not appear to Caiaphas, Pilate, or others who might admit they had it wrong all along, that this Jesus was more than he even claimed outright, that he was and is divine. Jesus’s appearance to Paul on the road to Damascus and the radical conversion that resulted provides some corresponding evidence, but the testimony of a single eyewitness is always subject to some doubt. If we take Paul seriously, we must accept his word on faith, at least in part.

  The Correspondence Theory is a good one, yet sometimes we just don’t have enough evidence to rationally decide if a statement someone makes is true or false. If however, like Mulder and Scully, we keep after it we might eventually discover the facts that prove there is a government conspiracy with the invading aliens or that Jesus was indeed God incarnate. But it is only a might.

  And there is another problem. Consider the simple proposition “Erwin’s cat is alive.” I might say that I see the cat playing with its ball and so I know it is alive. But this evidence is based on other beliefs, such as “Dead cats don’t play with balls,” which is based on other beliefs, such as “Dead cats are unable to move by their own power,” which is based on other beliefs ad infinitum and ad nauseam. The problem with correspondence is that it artificially isolates claims and beliefs, but they do not exist as discrete units. They are parts of a web in which each part depends on the others.

  “Truth Matters”: Coherence

  Recognizing the inadequacy of the Correspondence Theory of Truth, the Coherence Theory in its simplest form claims: a proposition is true if and only if it coheres, or is consistent, with propositions we already know to be true. For example, if we know that the killer did it in the study with a lead pipe, and we know that Colonel Mustard was in the kitchen at the time, the proposition “Colonel Mustard is the killer,” must be false. The proposition does not cohere with, does not fit–and in fact contradicts—other propositions that we know to be true.

  In The Passion Gibson’s Simon seems to employ the Coherence Theory. At first highly reluctant to carry the cross, Simon grows to embrace the task as he witnesses Jesus’s divine perseverance. Simon overcomes his doubts and fear and appears to put together the evidence to support the belief that Jesus is no ordinary convict.

  The Christian philosopher Richard Swinburne in The Resurrection of God Incarnate does not present a lone piece of evidence that “Jesus is God incarnate.” Rather he presents an array of evidence, which coheres to make a compelling case for the truth of Jesus being divine. In contrast though, Biblical scholar G.A. Wells in Can We Trust the New Testament? assembles a body of coherent evidence against the divinity of Jesus. So there is coherent evidence to support the truth of the claim, “Jesus is God incarnate” and coherent evidence to support the truth of the contradictory claim, “Jesus is not God incarnate.” But both claims cannot be true. Only one or the other can. So how can coherent evidence be the mark of truth? The fact is that the Coherence Theory gives us a necessary but not a sufficient condition for truth. If a proposition does not cohere with the evidence we have, it cannot be true, but just because the proposition does cohere with the evidence does not guarantee it is true. Recall that George Costanza of Seinfeld fame was infamous for coherent fabrications—none of them true—often to convince someone that he was an architect or employed by the likes of Vandelay Industries. Coherence is necessary, needed, but it is not sufficient, not enough for truth.

  “Hey, It Works”: Pragmatism

  From the school of folk wisdom that tells us “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” comes the Pragmatic Theory of Truth. Gibson’s Pilate was a pragmatist in some sense of the word. He did what he thought would work out best for himself politically. Relatively few people seemed to care about Jesus’s welfare, and an angry mob wanted him executed. For the sake of preserving the peace and his own neck, Gibson’s Pilate reluctantly gave the order for execution.

  But let’s not confuse Pilate’s pragmatism with the school of philosophy known as American Pragmatism and its Pragmatic Theory of Truth. William James (1842–1910) revised and defended the pragmatic theory in complex ways throughout his writings. In its simplest form the Pragmatic Theory holds: a proposition is true if it works. Broadly speaking, James argued that belief in the claim, “God exists,” works. It makes life better, easier, and more meaningful. In that sense then it is true that God exists. More specifically we might argue that “Jesus is God incarnate” is true because it works, making life better, easier, and more meaningful.

  The pragmatic conception of truth is well-suited to religion in that holding on faith that something is true can help to make it true. A salesman who believes he will make a sale at his next appointment will exude the confidence that will help win over the client, and he will envision the right things to do and say to close the deal. Similarly we might think that God does not restrict our freedom by making too much about him too obvious, but rather that he invites our partici
pation through belief. In this way, believing in God helps to make God work in our lives, helps to make Him “true.”

  Gibson’s Pilate is not just pragmatic, he seems to use the Pragmatic Theory of Truth in offering to free Jesus or Barabbas in recognition of the Passover celebration. If freeing Jesus in this way works to calm the angry crowd, Pilate seems to reason, then it would be true that it was good to free Jesus. But Pilate’s plan backfires as the mob shouts to free Gibson’s Hanna Barbera Barabbas.

  Thwarted expectations aside, there is a problem with the Pragmatic Theory. False things also work. Sailors found that navigating by the night sky worked perfectly well when they believed that the earth was at the center of the universe. Of course it turns out that their belief was false—it never was true—even though it worked. In light of this, William James must admit, as he does, that just because a belief works does not make it true if it turns out there is no corresponding reality.

  Worn out by the consideration of conflicting and ineffective criteria for truth, we might begin to think we are barking up the wrong tree. Perhaps a more serious problem with the criteria is that although they may help us decide that something is true, they do not answer the question “What is truth?” This is a question not of epistemology, not a matter concerning knowledge, but of metaphysics, a concern about the nature of reality. When I ask: What is a bird? a metaphysical answer would be: “A bird is a warm-blooded, egg-laying, vertebrate with fore-limbs modified into wings.” That would tell me what a bird is. Of course most people know a bird when they see one even if they can’t give a good definition of the word ‘bird.’ The criteria for truth are like criteria for picking out birds, looking for things that fly, have beaks, sit in nests, sing songs, yada yada yada. Since we generally know birds and know truth when we see them, let’s turn away from the criteria and toward the very nature of truth as actually posed by the question, “What is truth?”